Welcome once again to the continuing saga of Dancing Rabbit. Since our last issue we have had the much awaited arrival of Jack, Aaron, and Halle, who had been in Illinois having a baby (or being born from Jack's perspective) and recovering from that event. They have now joined us in Missouri and have settled into life here after us being apart for almost 6 months since leaving California. So life is different here now with a baby to keep us entertained and occupied. Jack is doing great and fitting in well with all the faces that are so new to him (see Raising Rabbits)
In other news, Tony has gotten a new telecommuting job with a company one of his former coworkers owns in California. This was especially exciting since he was just about to begrudgingly head off to Kansas City for a short term contracting position. We are trying not to count on computer income for survival of the project, but to see it more as a bonus that can help us move things faster than we could otherwise. For details on our business and income plans see Bringing home the Soysage. We are hoping that our finances will stabilize soon enough so we can feel comfortable taking out loans to buy land in the area.
One recent activity that has kept some rabbits busy is maple syrup tapping. For years Sandhill has been making their own, tapping the soft maples on their land (hard maples are the usual thing up in Vermont but soft is all we got here). Lately they've been getting about 12 quarts which they ration by labeling each with a month and saving them in the root cellar until each has its turn on the breakfast table. With DR's help, we are hoping to double production this year by tapping trees on neighboring lands (with permission of course) so that DR can have its own locally grown supply (another example of something we wouldn't be doing for years without Sandhill's help). Maple syrup is no small amount of work considering that the sap is boiled down 50 to 1 (sorghum by comparison does about 20 to 1). This means carrying a lot of 5 gallon buckets of sap as well as cutting wood for the sugar shack furnace. But it is a fun and educational project, and the payoff is oh so sweet.
Speaking of wood we've had some fun lately with our first load of ³slab wood" also known as mill ends. Slabs consist mostly of wood rounded on one side or otherwise unusable as commercial lumber. In big mills it is often used to make paper (i.e. the pre-consumer waste you hear about) but in the small local mills it is mostly just burned in a smoldering heap (yuck!). But for $5 we were able to get a few thousand pounds of it in our trailer (the one some of you will remember from our cross country journey). While most of the slab wood will eventually make it into our wood stove, heating our house instead of being wasted, some it we have pulled out for construction projects. We have already made shelves and a cold frame and have lots of big plans for this wood that was thrown away at the mill. We've come to think that we may never have to cut firewood on our land again, and that it is our duty to save all those slabs from being wasted (at worst we can dump them in the woods to rot and build up organic matter) I'm sure we will find many interesting uses for this locally produced waste product.
Looking ahead we see gardening in our not too distant future. A few days of 60 degree weather have reminded us that spring is around the corner. So with Sandhill's help we are making a seed order and getting ready to do some indoor planting in preparation for some early transplants. Sandhill already has their seeds going so we had better get moving soon. We are also excited that Rachel Freifelder will be joining us in late March, in time to help with spring planting.
We're also looking forward to visitors. We have been receiving numerous letters and have been sending out some new outreach material that describes our current situation including a description of Skyhouse. Hopefully we'll get a steady flow of people looking for community or at least looking to help out. If you'd like to visit, write, e-mail or call us soon to schedule a visit.
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